I was just there to get directions for how to get away from there

Yesterday I had a student who was absent. At lunch he comes riding up on his bike to the playground and I said, "Mulder [for the purposes of anonymity all of my male students are named Mulder and all of my female students are Scully], I thought you were sick today. What are you doing here? Mulder: "I just wanted to come and tell you why I couldn’t be at school today. We were at first communion parties until really late so I couldn’t come today.Me: "But you came here to tell me that. Why didn’t you just put your uniform on and come to school?" You clearly could make it here, because you are here."

At this point a very glazed and blank expression spread across Mulder’s face. I asked him about it again this morning. I’m still not sure he gets it.

I’m going to talk to the English teacher about introducing them to irony later today.